The HAT Trick
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: "John, I realize that technically I may have just incurred a head injury, but... are you braiding my hair?"


**Originally posted on LiveJournal and AO3 during July 2015  
Rating/Content:** PG13, blood, emergency medical procedures, case-fic, contrived woundings, minor Sherlock whump. **  
Disclaimer:** Not my world.  
 **Notes:** Written for **watsons_woes** July Writing Prompt #23: Improvised Tools.

 **Summary:** "John, I realize that technically I may have just incurred a head injury, but... are you braiding my hair?"

-.-

 **The HAT Trick**

-.-

Finding the cyanoacrylate glue in the desk drawer had been a minor miracle. The blood-soaked loo roll John held on Sherlock's head had long soaked through. They'd have to take it with them as they left, but that's what the bin liner was for.

Scalp wounds always bled like mad, but somehow - in a significantly less minor miracle - none of the blood had gotten on the office or the hall or the boiler room they'd hidden in until the suspect left or anywhere else in the building they currently had no legal reason to be in. Much of it was slowed by Sherlock's thick hair and some had trickled down into his coat collar, but John's quick grab of maintenance supplies - a couple of loo rolls and a bin liner - kept any of it from dripping to the floor. How Sherlock had managed to gash his head against a piece of sheet metal that had no business being in the building's boiler room was a mystery for the ages.

Keeping the sodden rolls handy and secured from dripping in the bin bag tucked into his elbow, John pushed the sides of the five centimeter scalp wound closed, netting only a minor hiss from Sherlock as he continued searching the suspect's physical filing cabinet. Squeezing out adhesive along the wound and pressing the sides together for a few seconds' count, John then quickly grabbed a tuft of Sherlock's hair from either side of the cut and tied them together into a tight knot.

Sherlock's hands which had been busily flicking through the files in the low horizontal cabinet stopped. "John, I realize that technically I may have just incurred a head injury, but... are you braiding my hair?"

"Scalp wound," John clarified, adding a drop of glue to the knotted hair. "Not head injury or I wouldn't be letting you continue to be half-bent-over searching for whatever it is you're looking for. And not braiding, knotting."

"Oh." Sherlock flicked past a few documents then stopped. "What? Why?"

"It's called the 'Hair Apposition Technique'." _Or close enough for now._ John watched for stray drips as he selected two more roughly equidistant hair tufts. Good so far. "Look it up when we aren't hiding out in a suspect's office, trying not to let you bleed on anything."

"Hair Apposition-" Sherlock squinted out the side of his eye at John. "H. A. T. _Hat._ Really."

John shrugged and knotted the pair of tufts, dabbing them with glue. "Yes really. Cyanoacrylate glue to act as an adhesive suture, knots in the hair to take stress off the closure and give the cyanoacrylate a chance to bond. And - because you are a _massive_ git who refuses to stop moving and talking _ever_ \- I'm applying glue to the knots too, so they stand some chance of holding."

The lack of file-flicking from Sherlock suddenly became somehow more pronounced. "You're... gluing my hair. Into knots."

John rolled his eyes and selected another tuft pair. "Honestly, it's not like this tiny office has an internal CCTV for you to look cool for or we wouldn't be here doing this, and when we get to A & E to get this properly seen to they'll be shaving that area of your scalp anyway."

Sherlock emitted a small pained grunt.

"Oh, just hush and find your 'you'll know it when you find it' whatever it is so we can get out of here," John hissed, tying the final pair of tufts and squeezing on the glue. It looked a bit like a french braid on a zombie, but it was doing the trick. John capped the glue and looked at the tube. "Real stroke of luck, this. Who keeps cyanoacrylate glue in an office desk drawer anyway?"

Sherlock gasped, stood up suddenly from his half-crouched position in front of the filing cabinet and spun to point at the cracked, oversized coffee mug on the desk. "Someone who needed to repair a murder weapon!"

John pulled out a second bin-liner from his coat pocket. "Good job I grabbed two bags."

-.-.-  
(that's it.)

 _Note: According to my Googlings, the Hair Apposition Technique is an actual procedure used in hospitals, though John's technique is somewhat less than textbook here. It's also recommended for use with young children who would be even more distressed by needle or staple suturing. Seemed appropriate for Sherlock. ;-)_


End file.
